Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “McMutrie sisters return to Haiti”

“A Pittsburgh-based group landed yet another plane here Saturday night to drop off medical supplies and pick up orphans, amid revelations that 11 children remained stranded at the BRESMA orphanage two weeks after the rescue of 54 others.

Onboard were the two Ben Avon sisters whose plight and dramatic air rescue, carried out by a delegation headed by Gov. Ed Rendell, catapulted them to national prominence.

Jamie and Ali McMutrie, who refused to leave more than 100 children in their care at the BRESMA orphanage amid the chaos that followed the Jan. 12 earthquake, suddenly found themselves in a new spotlight: fending off questions about how money has been spent by the Hazelwood church that husbands the funds raised for the orphans.”

Diane McMutrie figures she must have knocked on the doors of 100 businesses three months ago when she was trying to raise money for the Haitian orphanage where her two daughters had been volunteering for nearly four years.

Now that Jamie and Ali McMutrie’s desperate and successful battle to get the orphans in their care out of Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake has grabbed national and international headlines, people can’t seem to do enough.

“That’s great,” said Diane McMutrie. “But I have to wonder, where were they then?”

Despite calls from CNN, “Good Morning America,” Katie Couric and Ellen DeGeneres, the McMutrie sisters and their family say they are still the same young women who chose to dedicate their lives to Haiti’s children.

Two Ben Avon sisters responsible for rescuing 54 Haitian orphans from the earthquake-ravaged country say they are getting used to being called heroes, while also introducing their new younger brother to their hometown.

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